Learning Objectives and Outcomes

• Compare and contrast traditional and cloud data backup methods.

 Assignment Requirements

You are an experienced employee of the DigiFirm Investigation Company. Chris, your team leader, explains that your biggest client, Major Corporation, is evaluating how they back up their data. Chris needs you to form a report that compares traditional backup methods to those provided by a cloud service provider, including the security of cloud services versus traditional forms of on-site and off-site backup.

For this assignment:

1.    Research both traditional and cloud data backup methods.

2.   Form a paper that compares the two. Make sure that you include the security of cloud services versus traditional forms of on-site and off-site backup. 

 Self-Assessment Checklist

• I researched both traditional and cloud data backup methods.
• I formed a report that compares the two.
• I included the security of cloud services versus traditional forms of on-site and off-site backup.

[1] Introduction: In today's world the data are the most important thing which needs to be stored in a safe place and only accessed by authorized people. The backing up of data allows the company to restore data from storage devices through the internet or directly connected to that device.

[2] Traditional Data Backup methods: The traditional backup methods used any device or memory to store the data, such as Printing, USB stick and External hard drive. 

Cloud Data Backup methods: The data is stored on a cloud server, which is of free cost and to store data there are some methods like Differential backups, Full backups and Incremental backups.

[3] (i) There are three types of cloud services, i.e. SaaS, IaaS and PaaS which needs to be secure. The following are the security solutions of cloud services:

SaaS: Advanced malware prevention, Cloud access security broker (CASB)

IaaS: Cloud access security broker (CASB), Virtual network security platforms (VNSP)

PaaS: Cloud security posture management (CSPM), Cloud workload protection platforms (CWPP).

(ii) To store the data in different ways to many storage devices which could be easily recovered so that there are two types of traditional forms:

On-site storage: Data store in secondary memory.

Off-site storage: Store the data in different locations on the server. 

[4] Conclusion: The best method is cloud based storage because it provides more security over traditional storage methods. In-off-site storage locations can be lost while recovering the data from different locations. 

Step-by-step explanation

[1] Introduction: Backing up the data is the most important factor, so that if there would be any kind of theft, loss of data etc. then it could be restored easily. The data can be stored anywhere which cannot be lost. There are many traditional and latest methods to store the data and depend upon availability of resources to store the data. 

[2] The difference between Traditional and Cloud data backup methods:

[3] (i) The three types of services of cloud that provide infrastructure to store the data and provide access to data. The data store in different services needs to be secure which is given below: 

SaaS: Software-as-a-service which is cloud based software provides to an organization: 

Advanced malware prevention: Uses the latest technologies to find the threat before zero-days attacks occur and it provides the real time intelligence to detect. 

Cloud access security broker (CASB): It helps to detect the threat so that IT departments are able to see the change in cloud data. 

IaaS: Infrastructure-as-a-service provides the data in virtual environments which needs to be secure:  

Cloud access security broker (CASB): It provides the opportunity to see the data encryption, monitoring of users and detecting the malware. 

Virtual network security platforms (VNSP): In the IaaS environments, it makes possible to scan the network traffic to save the resources which are virtual. 

PaaS: Platform-as-a-service provides the platform to run applications of cloud like database, operating system, web server, etc.

Cloud security posture management (CSPM): It checks the posture of the cloud environment on a daily basis to find the issues which need to be solved.

Cloud workload protection platforms (CWPP): The workload should not be more which provides a way to enter into the cloud environment. 

(ii) Backing up the data is the most important task for every company which can easily retrieve when required. There are two types which were used in old times:

On-site storage: It is used when the data to be stored on the periodic basis on the secondary memory such as DVDs, Hard drives, Magnetic disk and CDs. To access the data there is no need for an internet connection and it is inexpensive.

Off-site storage: The data is stored on a server which could be accessed remotely through the internet or direct access. It can be easily shared in different locations. In this storage the data is preserved, but sometimes websites can be down under maintenance.

[4] Conclusion: With the availability of resources every company stores the data, but the cloud based methods help to provide more security. It would be easily accessed by an authorized person. From the traditional forms off-site storage is much similar to cloud based methods, but it provides more security of data because the data can be stored on different models. 

Please see the attached file for the complete solution